Dogen sitting at the bar

like a panicked emergency vehicle,

cuts through the traffic,

swimming through confused cars,

my anxiety cannot be traded,

for curiosity or anticipation, 

as it is borne of a visceral perception,

the immediacy of contingency,

and an empirical heart,

this anxiety is like a friend,

whom I've never known,

a stranger with whom I've shared my life,

watching,

robotic flashing reds, 

yellows,

greens, 

reflected in the grease,

of fatigued concrete,

I fall into a dream,

in which I am in a dark room,

reaching for a light switch,

when I find it,

I flick it,

but the room remains dark,

I can hear rain hitting the window,

it's a house I know,

I can hear distant voices,

like commentators at a baseball game,

I wake up.

mezzanine

that sky beyond the clouds,

where a frail bird can fly,

over unturned, tortured soil,

over older hearts,

in a park,

pickling in the youthful sun,

but we can't stay here for long,

you'll be moving on,

and I'll be gone,

fallen into the fractures,

that shake the fault lines of time,

but what if it could be different?

something original and new,

you could stand at a distance,

I might connect and hit it to you,

or even past the difference between what I say,

and what I mean,

over a sea of wild and wide open eyes,

into the mezzanine. 

loosener

haggard old needs nag,

stifle and shove,

pulling at the pant legs,

dragging,

with that stubborn desire,

a hanger-on,

a leech,

a parasite,

making lonely days,

drip slow like molasses,

but to stand,

or sit, 

or run,

or work,

through the ache,

and all the chains,

can turn the fear,

into nothing but a shadow,

that you saw in the corner of your eye,

in a dream,

cutting you loose,

to energize,

to play, 

to dive deep,

into the flow.